Page 62 of Unwrapped

“Remember our first Christmas together?” she asks.

“How could I forget? We spent the entire time with your family getting drunk off your dad’s rum punch. Your mother finally decided I was useful when she saw my superior gift wrapping skills and dance moves. Do you know that was one of the best Christmases of my life?”

“Mine too.”

She runs her fingers through my hair, and I rub her swollen belly as I think about our years together and how fast things moved with us. It was only a few months after our first Christmas when I went to her father to talk to him about proposing to his daughter. Despite the good relationship I’ve had with Nigel, I was nervous. This was his only daughter and the apple of his eye, but I worried needlessly.

“I’m surprised it took you this long,” he says to me after telling him my plans to propose.

“Yeah, well, I was already on shaky ground. And she’s young, so I wanted to give her a little bit of time.”

Nigel taps me on the shoulder and pulls out a cigar from his secret stash. Whenever Mona isn’t around, he indulges in a cigar.

“I just have to make sure I shower before Mona gets home. The woman has a nose like a bloodhound.” I take the cigar from him, not really liking them, but I know this is one of the ways he bonds with me. Since Andrew’s been back in the states permanently, he’ll have one with us whenever he visits.

“Don’t worry about the time, son. When you meet the right person, you just know. I knew I wanted to marry Mona two minutes after meeting her. She’s been driving me crazy ever since, but I can’t spend a day without her or I’ll lose my mind.”

“You were always okay with me, despite the way you and Mona found out about us. I thought you would have given me a much harder time, but you didn’t. You helped us, in fact. Why?” Nigel isn’t a talkative man unless he’s having a cigar.

“Well, I believed you when you said you loved her. I’m good at reading people. And Mona will deny this, but her parents didn’t like me at first. They thought I wanted to marry her for a green card, even though I’ve been in this country since I was eleven and was already a citizen when I met Mona. I’ve forgotten more about American history than they’ll ever know. We’re okay now, but I promised myself then that if I was lucky enough to have kids, I would always respect their choices. And you know something else? I think you and I are a lot alike.” He surprises me by throwing his head back and laughing. “My daughter found a man just like her father, and she doesn’t even realize it.”

A few days later, Miranda was wearing my ring and moving into my house, and Mona was planning a destination wedding, all animosity toward me forgotten.

“Are you happy you married me?” she asks.

I pull back to look at her face, sigh loudly, and roll my eyes. “Always fishing for compliments. You know marrying you is the best thing I’ve ever done. And seeing you big with my child inside of you? There aren’t enough words to describe how that makes me feel.”

She smiles at me and mouthsI knowbefore kissing my lips. “Are you happy you marriedme?”

She shrugs her shoulders and says, “It’s okay so far.” She starts to laugh when I tickle her. “Okay! Okay!” she shrieks. “I’m ecstatic I married you, even though you decided not to cook today. You’re the best husband I’ve ever had.”

The family is coming for brunch soon, but instead of cooking like I normally do, we both slept in. After driving her to the hospital yesterday with what we believed were labor pains, hours later, we returned home. My wife was not in labor yet. Too exhausted to cook such a large meal, I arranged to have the whole thing catered.

At the sound of the doorbell, we both rise from my chair. With my arm securely around her waist, we walk to the front of the house. I try to bring her to the couch, but she shakes her head and points at the door.

I can hear everyone talking at once.

“How do they always manage to arrive at the same time?” I ask. Impatient to see everyone, Miranda opens the door and our entire family is standing on the other side.

“Baby girl,” her mom says. “You’re supposed to be sitting. Nick, why isn’t she sitting somewhere with her feet propped up?”

Neither one of us has a chance to answer when our thirteen-month-old son shoves his way in and runs right to his mom. I intercept and scoop him up.

“My Stinky Nicky two-point-O,” Miranda says, reaching over and kissing our toddler. “I’ve missed you, baby. Did your grandparents spoil you? Dad, please tell me you didn’t let him sleep in the bed with you and Mom again. We can never get him in his crib when you do that.”

Nigel comes over and kisses his daughter on the cheek after shaking my hand. He reaches for my son and takes him out of my arms.

“He is my grandson to spoil as I see fit, gal. If he tells me he wants to sleep on the roof in the middle of January, I’ll find a way to make it happen. Now, hurry up and give us a second one to spoil.” He kisses her cheek again and walks away with our son.

“Not helpful, Dad!” Miranda yells after her father. I hug my mom briefly, but she turns her attention to my pregnant wife and touches her belly.

Nick junior was the second biggest surprise of my life, his mother being the first. We agreed to be married at least two years before starting a family, but our son had a mind of his own.

We had only been back from our honeymoon six weeks before we found out she was pregnant. I still remember being struck speechless when she told me.

It’s a Friday night in early September. I’ve been in New Hampshire all day touring the site where a building I’ve been hired to design is going to be built. It’s after seven at night by the time I get home, and after rubbing my shoulders and sitting me down at the dinner table, Miranda sits in my lap.

“You smell good, sweets. Let’s head up to bed right after dinner.” I rub my face in the crook of her neck. “If I don’t sink into you soon, I might die.”

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